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As shock of season fades, Michigan State's Cassius Winston waits for chance in NBA

“I was really hoping my beard was gonna come in,” Winston said with a laugh while stroking his chin on a video teleconference with reporters Monday, “but it didn’t really work out.”

That’s fitting. Winston knows his journey from Michigan State basketball to the NBA is his to forge, unique with the experiences of a roller-coaster year of ultimate highs, painful lows and a gamut of everything in between.

Unmet expectations early. A magical Final Four. The death of his brother, Zachary. A third straight Big Ten title. A sudden end to his senior season. Back-to-back All-America honors.

Michigan State guard Cassius Winston is all smiles after hitting a 3-pointer during the second half of MSU's 87-69 win over U-M on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020, in East Lansing.(Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

And ahead, a chance to use everything he learned under Tom Izzo to become a professional basketball player.

“I would say I had a great career. I pretty much accomplished just about everything you could out of a career,” Winston said. “There was only maybe a couple of things that I didn't accomplish, but they were right there, too. So my time at Michigan State, I gotta be proud of myself with what I've done and what I accomplished during my time there.”

Even if it came to an abrupt ending short of his only missing piece — a national title.

Shock and awe

Winston is proud to end career with a title in his final game. Few Spartans have been able to do that, though both Magic Johnson and Mateen Cleaves did it in the conventional way by winning an NCAA championship.

MSU appeared ready to make a run after Winston and his teammates defeated Ohio State, 80-69, on March 8 during senior night at Breslin Center to close the regular season with a share of the Big Ten title for the third straight year. It was their fifth straight win, with help coming from around the league to split the crown with Maryland and Wisconsin at 14-6 in league play.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound senior was masterful in his farewell performance. Winston made 10 of 14 shots to score 27 points with six assists and four rebounds in 39 minutes. He checked out to a raucous, standing ovation with 9.4 seconds remaining to kiss the logo at midcourt, point skyward in memory of his brother who died in early November and walk into a long, loving embrace from Tom Izzo.

Tom Izzo hugs Cassius Winston, after he leaves the game on senior day at the end of Michigan State's 80-69 win against Ohio State, Sunday, March 8, 2020 at the Breslin Center in East Lansing.(Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

“I can finally say now that the year is over, I couldn't do what he did,” Izzo said after the win over Ohio State. “And yet it's my job to push him to do more. But I could not have done what he did. It’s a tribute to his mom, his dad and him.”

Izzo had no idea the finality of his statement would hold true.

The Big Ten tournament was canceled the morning of March 12, a day before MSU was set to open play. The NCAA tournament was canceled a few hours later. Winston recalled those final days of his college career and defined them as “unreal.”

“Going to the tournament, I think we had everything that we kind of needed. We were playing the basketball that we kind of thought we would have been playing the whole season. I feel like we reached it at the right time,” he said. “When you just get it taken away all of a sudden, it was unreal. One day, we were practicing, and the next day the season was over.

“It just happened kind of fast. It was (so) sudden that you didn't really get a chance to appreciate that. The senior night and the end of the season, you didn't get a chance to really, fully appreciate it because you thought you had so many more games left.

Winston averaged 18.6 points, 5.9 assists, 2.5 rebounds and 1.2 steals in 32.7 minutes a game as a senior. He shot 44.8% overall, including 43.2% from 3-point range, and made 85.2% of his free-throw attempts in leading MSU to a 22-9 record. He joined Cleaves as the only MSU players to be a consensus All-American multiple times.

But a year after getting to the Final Four and falling short, Winston got denied the chance to capitalize on the late-season momentum again. Yet he believed his ability to push through personal trauma and the Spartans' rally for another Big Ten title rendered anything beyond that “a cherry on top.”

“It's a little different for me because what I thought the season was gonna be like coming into the year and then what the season actually was for me were two totally different things for a lot of reasons,” he said. “So getting to the end of the year, making it how far we made it, I was proud of myself and the team for what we did.”

Michigan State's Cassius Winston scores against Ohio State during the first half Sunday, March 8, 2020 at the Breslin Center.(Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

What’s next

Winston has been staying in East Lansing with his youngest brother, Khy, who moved in with Cassius after his freshman year at Albion College was cut short. The two have been working out together when they can at Breslin Center to get their shots and conditioning in.

After that, Winston returns to their apartment to field video conference calls from NBA personnel for about three hours a day. He said he has spoken to eight or nine teams the past few weeks and expects to virtually visit with the Pistons sometime next week.

Winston said he hopes to go in the first round but knows that is not a given. Most projections put him in the late first to mid-second round of an NBA draft that remains in limbo along with the rest of the sports world. He knows he needs to be ready in case it happens early in the summer, but also realizes it could be moved to September and might require him to taper any in-person tryouts.

“You got to find that that balance where if they push it back to September and I'm going full-go from now until September, I might burn out when it's my time to do my workouts,” he said. “You just got to find that perfect little balance, which is hard to do because there is no timeline.”

The families of Michigan State guard Cassius Winston and coach Tom Izzo pose during the senior day ceremony after MSU's 80-69 win over Ohio State on Sunday, March 8, 2020, at the Breslin Center.(Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

Winston holds a realistic view of his talents that a four-year college career has provided.

“My ceiling isn't the same as Giannis (Antetokounmpo). That's just the fact of the matter — I won't be Giannis in the NBA,” Winston said. “So if you don't have a big like that, you know, you might as well try to go and get you a Giannis. And then guys like me, we fall where we may and just make it work.”

With his free time, Winston has been playing some video games, particularly "Call of Duty: Warzone." “When we first got on quarantine I played like maybe like 16 hours straight. It was ridiculous,” he said.

He also, like most sports fans, has been watching ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls. He has seen Michael Jordan talk about how he built his success and heard those words fall in line with many of the things Izzo preached at MSU.

“The biggest thing you learn is this a full-time job. It's not a hobby, it's not something you do on the side,” Winston said. “If you're gonna play this game and you're gonna be successful at it, you gotta put everything you got into it. And that's the only way you're gonna get rewards from it.

“I feel like I feel like my game translates to that level. I feel like my mentality does. I feel like with my work ethic, I'm gonna get there and I'm gonna find a way to stick and I'm finally to make things happen. Because that's what I do. That's just been my story of my life. I'm gonna figure out a way, and I believe in myself and I believe I can do it.”

CLOSE

Watch Cassius Winston kiss the Spartan logo at midcourt, leaving the game for the final time at Breslin Center in MSU's win over OSU, March 8, 2020.
Detroit Free Press